It was an ordinary winter's day in early 1991, and London taxi driver Eric Court was driving his black cab up to the notorious amateur racetrack that is Hyde Park Corner. As he picked his way through the traffic, Court became involved in an altercation with a young man in an adjacent vehicle. As the pair argued, the young man produced a can of CS gas and sprayed it into the taxi driver's eyes.

It will have been scant consolation to Court at that moment to know it, but he had just, unwittingly, played a vital role in the Formula One career of perhaps the greatest grand prix driver in history.

To explain: the young man with the CS gas was a racing driver called Bertrand Gachot, a talented Belgian who at the time of the Hyde Park Corner incident was employed by the fledgling Jordan Grand Prix team, who were to make their debut in that year's Formula One world championship.

Gachot, a supremely self-confident individual, was convinced that his indiscretion would earn him no more than a fine, and convinced his team boss, Eddie Jordan, that he had nothing to fear.

But Gachot was wrong. When the case came to trial in the summer, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail, and Jordan, already short of money, suddenly found himself short of a driver as well.

Gachot actually served only two months, but that was enough to finish his top-rank Formula One career. He made a comeback with lesser teams, and even scored the occasional point, but never did justice to his talent. However, he went on to become a millionaire in the energy drinks business.

Any vacancy in Formula One rapidly attracts a queue of applicants, and Jordan's neat and nippy car was a powerful bait. Keke Rosberg, a former world champion, was interested in the drive. Also in the frame was a promising young Englishman named Damon Hill. But Jordan had heard good things about Michael Schumacher, who had been impressing observers with his speed in the Mercedes junior sportscar programme.

Jordan's interest became all the keener when it became clear that Schumacher might bring some money with him. Schumacher's astute manager, Willi Weber, had been on the phone to Jordan the moment that the news of Gachot's incarceration broke. And he kept the phone calls coming.

The involvement of Jochen Neerpasch, the head of motor sport at Mercedes, was crucial. He dreamed of establishing a German Formula One team with German drivers, and Schumacher was a key part of his plans. Blooding the youngster with a mid-grid team would give him valuable experience. Neerpasch agreed to pay Jordan £150,000 for the one-off drive.

The money came at an opportune time for the struggling team. "That morning the bailiffs had locked up the truck because I had no money," Jordan would later recall. "They claimed that I owed money to somebody, which was a complete fallacy, of course. But we needed a few quid from Mercedes and, god bless 'em, they paid."

The only lingering concern in Jordan's mind was Schumacher's inexperience. He had never driven a Formula One car before. And the next race was to be held on the Spa circuit in Belgium, the longest and probably most challenging circuit on the entire calendar. Jordan rang Weber. Had Michael driven around Spa before? Weber knew that his protege had never so much as set eyes on the track, let alone driven around it. Various versions of his response to Jordan have been suggested over the years, but the gist of them all is: "He was brought up 50 miles away, for goodness' sake. What do you think?" Not exactly an untruth, and the reassurance that the team boss needed. Job done.

Schumacher's first acquaintance with a Formula One car came at a hastily arranged test session on Silverstone's south circuit, a little-used variant of the grand prix track just over the road from Jordan's headquarters. The team knew the track well, and were astounded when, within half-a-dozen laps, the 22-year-old was beating the times of their regular drivers.

Trevor Foster, the team manager, called Schumacher into the pits, told him to slow down. "But I'm not over the edge," the driver complained. "I'm not on the limit." Twice more he went out, and drove fast. Twice more he was called in and cautioned. In the pits, Foster turned to the team's commercial manager, Ian Phillips. "Phone Eddie," he said. "And tell him we've found a star."

When Schumacher arrived at the Belgian circuit for his first race, he was told that his vastly experienced team-mate, Andrea de Cesaris, would take him around the track in a road car to show him the braking points and changes of camber. Strangely, though, de Cesaris seemed to be too busy to undertake this simple task. With dusk looming, Schumacher borrowed a bike and pedalled off to learn the circuit by himself.

De Cesaris must have had intimations of his new team-mate's talent. When practice began, the young German blew him away. In the paddock and press room, the world of Formula One was transfixed by the timing screens as Schumacher screamed around the circuit. He would eventually qualify in seventh place, one and a half seconds faster than his team-mate.

De Cesaris could not believe what was happening to him. "All right," he conceded. "He's fast. But one and a half seconds? There must be something wrong with my car."

Sadly, in the race the next day, there was something wrong with Schumacher's car. He moved up to fifth place from the start, but almost immediately the clutch exploded, and he pulled off without completing a lap. One of the most dramatic debuts in the history of the sport was also one of the shortest.

But the other teams had seen enough, and Weber's phone rang non-stop with inquiries about Schumacher's contractual status. Jordan thought they had the new star sewn up, but on the advice of Neerpasch and Weber, the driver hadn't signed a contract but a form indicating his intent to sign a contract. He was up for grabs.

Benetton, the team owned by the Italian knitwear family and managed by the flamboyant millionaire Flavio Briatore, were the keenest to sign Schumacher. They ran Nelson Piquet, a former world champion now in decline, and Robert Moreno, a talented but underachieving Brazilian. Briatore set his lawyers to work.

When Schumacher showed up for the next race, it was as a Benetton driver, not a Jordan man. The Irish team owner was incensed, threatening lawsuits left, right and centre. The sport's governing body would take no action, and Jordan raged on until Ron Dennis, the boss of the McLaren team, took him to one side and murmured: "Welcome to the piranha club." Moreno ended up taking the place at Jordan, and Eddie pocketed a little more cash.

Amid all the contractual frenzy at the Italian Grand Prix weekend, Schumacher remained polite and friendly while Neerpasch, Weber and Briatore did the wheeler-dealing. He concentrated on his driving, and once more qualified seventh, untroubled by his new machinery. He finished fifth, scoring points in just his second race. Significantly his new team-mate, Piquet, the triple world champion, was sixth.

Michael's life had been transformed in the course of a month. He remained, notionally, a member of the Mercedes junior team, but they had agreed to release him for Formula One. Benetton were paying him to race, and Weber was at work on merchandising contracts.

Over the remaining four races of the season, Schumacher consolidated his position within the team, scoring points and impressing all with his attitude.

Piquet was on the way out, which would create a vacancy as a de facto team leader. The British driver Martin Brundle was to join the team in 1992, but there was no sense that he was signing as the youngster's No 2. That would only become apparent as the season wore on.

What they said...

Mika HakkinenRespected by Michael Schumacher as his greatest and toughest opponent, Hakkinen was stunned by his boldness in 1990 in Macau where they collided, leaving the German to go on to win the famous Formula Three race. Hakkinen recalled: "I felt I was quicker, so I decided to just keep him under pressure and wait for a mistake. He certainly made one in the last part of the race. We came to this high-speed corner in fifth gear and we are both doing 240-250 kph, until I am very close behind, planning to pass him on the inside when, at the same time, he moved in front of me and caused a big accident. I crashed into him, lost the front end, hit the wall on the left, hit the wall on the right. It wasn't very pleasant!"

Derek WarwickThe Briton, who had a contretemps with Schumacher during practice at a sports car race meeting at the Nurburgring in 1991, only a few weeks before Schumacher drove in F1 for the first time and just weeks after his brother, Paul, was killed at Oulton Park, recalled his feelings when he was a victim of the now infamous Schumacher 'tunnel vision': "I felt he drove into my car and that was not acceptable, I did not deliberately slow him down. At the most, it was a misunderstanding, but what he did to me was intentional. I was very close to punching him. The only thing that stopped me was that I suddenly saw a child before me. I looked at him and I saw Paul. It stopped me in my tracks..."